


Siege

by Monstrosibee



Series: Championing A Cause [4]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, i promise the liege max and vigilem fics are relevant to champion, im sorry im allergic to writing things in order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-29 22:29:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19839823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monstrosibee/pseuds/Monstrosibee
Summary: The original three titans face Liege Maximo and Vigilem for their final battle.Only it wasn't quite the battle of which history books spoke.





	Siege

**Author's Note:**

> i swear this is relevant to champion i promise i just want to write this kind of stuff

They loomed on the horizon, their massive forms irregular mountains against the dusty red sky that ushered in nightfall as the seventh day of the siege dissolved into darkness. The weather was fitting; cold wind chewed at Liege Maximo's chainmail cloak, whipping it about his emerald plated shins, brief sting of its thin links only serving to push him further into vigilance. It was SOME kind of sensation through the muffling layers of extra armor he had installed recently, which while protecting him, made tactile input faint and distant.

The rush of presence in his processor, however, was clear as day. It lanced across the transmitter circuits that had been nestled there by the nameless medic all those millions of years ago, a bridge for someone that couldn't take the physical route. Vigilem was only the paltry linguistic descriptor for him; in reality the titan's name was the blistering heat of his engines as he walked across the empty Forgotten Plains, the deep rumble of his rarely used audible voice, the vibrant pink light his optics cast on the landscape when his root mode stood vigil on its slumbering citizen. It poured into Maximo's mind like a sudden wave of molten sentillo metallico, breathing life into his dark thoughts.

The words it brought with it, however, were less comforting. _The last of the citizens have been hidden, Max. My second could only get a handful of them to fully evacuate._

Maximo hissed out through his vents, teeth bared in a silent grimace. _That's as I expected, Vigilem. Our people have never been willing to go down without a fight, but I'm glad that we will be able to save even a few._ Where Vigilem's presence through the titan-Prime link hardware was a sturdy pylon of support, Maximo's was bright dazzle of sparks in the titan's mind, like the bloom of the sun after a storm, or the sour-sweet taste of energon to an empty tank. _Have you sent the second away?_

 _Yes._ The sense of sorrow that accompanied the titan's reply was palpable, almost an ocean of sparkbreaking emotion. _He will be safe. I do not think the other Primes will be looking for a single satellite titan, when he was not included in most of our dealings._

Nodding, Maximo looked to the horizon again, catching the flash of gold that accompanied Chela unfolding his wings. The warrior titan did not take flight, but he knew the look of beast moded flier preparing for battle, no matter the size. Considering that it WAS a titan, however, Maximo estimated it gave them at least a little time to prepare...perhaps eight hours. His sense of hearing wasn't as sharp as some Cybertronians, but he knew from his own experience haunting Vigilems halls that Chela's chassis modules were shifting with deafening clunks and the screech of metal over metal.

Metrotitan and Metroplex stood stock still, though, bare hands and size all they carried for their eventual assault on Maximo and his partner. In truth, his physical prowess would mean little when they truly threw punches, as Vigilem was the one who would bear the brunt of the attack, and it made the relatively small size of his spark feel even smaller with the uselessness of his own actions.

 _Stop it._ The gentle slap the Prime felt across the hardware transmitter was enough to pull him out of his silently hopeless thoughts, and he suddenly realized that the ground beneath him had begun to stir. A transformation cog several times the size of a city block had begun to spin, and the landscape around him was becoming not a landscape with a speed that would've gotten a stern scolding from the titan's doctor Lumbar even on a good day. _Would you ask me to attend a diplomatic meeting in an overdecorated ballroom for you?_

Maximo pursed his lips, ascending the stairs that crooked out of the ramparts beside him as the walls folded away into the flat surface of outer blue plating. _It's different._

 _You say that pretty much every time I attempt to risk myself just as much as you._ The words were still acidic, but with enough good humor in them for the Prime to know Vigilem was joking. _Besides, I have just as much to lose in this conflict as you, if not more. I'd rather go out fighting then on an executioner's stage._

The sobering thought quieted them both until Maximo emerged from the titan's shifting internals to stand behind one of the heavy duty transparently silica panes that were inlaid in Vigilem's chest. From here, he could see to the horizon still, but he could also feel the soft radiating cold of the enormous spark casing mere feet from him, pulsing with a frequency that he could feel in his spinal struts. If he concentrated hard enough, he thought he could JUST hear the whine of it, but everyone knew that a spark-song was too high even for the most specially adapted Cybertronian to catch.

It didn't stop Maximo from straining to hear this one, just this time. Just this one final time

They came earlier than either expected.

Maximo woke from an unintentional recharge against the silica pane to the sudden tumble of head over heels, as an enormous palm shifted over the silica viewports, followed quickly by a flash of gold talons. Vigilem's rumbling audible voice roared a challenge in the titanic tongue, unintelligible to the Prime but apparently enough to elicit insulted responses from Metrotitan. 

With a shock of pained sensation, Maximo felt new presences pouring into his processor; the assaulting force had hacked the hardware link that he and his titan shared, and were trying to shut Vigilem down from the inside. He could feel the tortured sorrow of Metroplex, the staunch neutral duty of Metrotitan, the furious betrayed hurt of Chela. Suddenly four titans enmeshed in his head, and he almost screamed until Vigilem wrestled them away and back into his own, barring Maximo entry except for the faintest tendril of contact.

Steam blasted from the Prime's ventral seams, supplementary cooling system trying to compensate for the sudden pressure on his body that had just as quickly disappeared. _Apologies...Vigilem. I thought I would be more use in a test of CPU strength but it seems I was...foolishly mistaken._

The titan was too occupied to verbally acknowledge Maximo's admittance, but the Prime felt a wisp of not quite but almost forgiveness/opposite of surprise/reassurance but more than that float through to him, once again entrenched in the frustrating titan language of descriptive words that were not words. He stumbled completely to his feet, placing a hand against the spark casing for support that he just as quickly withdrew with a hiss as the cold made his knuckle joints go stiff. 

With practiced step, he strode purposefully across to the console set into the wall, easily compensating for the rocking of the titan as he drew up several sets of information on the screen. A blow landed somewhere on Vigilem's lower body, and Maximo anchored himself to the console by gripping the sides, but he could hear the rattling thunder of loose parts and miscellaneous items tumbling about in the background of the spark chamber. The refugees of the city itself, he knew, were much safer in the lower segments of Vigilem's great body, which was heavily reinforced to support a torso the size of a city, but it still made Maximo's circuits sing with worry as he was sure they would be crushed.

His quick fingers tapped out across the console keyboard, first entering a passcode in primal vernacular and then in the titantic tongue, whose letters he couldn't quite properly look at without getting a headache. The screen blanked for a moment, then lit with tiny titanic letters, and he had to look away for a moment to gather his bearings. Damn titans and their four dimensional alphabet. But at least it would be gibberish to anyone who found it, and even the titans had issues translating it to anything the average Cybertronian could read. The reports would be safe enough for now.

Another blow rocked the spark chamber, and Maximo was finally able to see the results of the battle; a huge slash had appeared in the silica, ripping the usually durable material like a blade through organic flesh. Vigilem bellowed in both anger and pain, one of the Metro brothers tucked under his left arm in a choke hold. Even massive Metroplex was shorter than the titan of the Forgotten Plains, the top of his helm just coming up to the tip of Vigilem's nose, but three of them at the same time...

Quieter outraged commotion began to seep into the spark chamber under the sealed doors, and Maximo spun to face the door, plating around his face flaring like the frightened threat displays of a corner turbofox. His cloak had been abandoned some time in a subspace crate next to the spark casing itself, but he yearned for its bulk just at that moment, his slim angled curves and grace in the rocky mountains of the Plains largely useless in a fight without the strength to back them.

The door curled inward, metal melted by blasts and plasma swords, and uniformly sleek but obviously differently moded bots spilled in, the crest of Prima's and Trion's house etched into the lustrous metal of their sternums. Energon splattered their otherwise spotless plating, and as Maximo watched, one near the back of the crowd drove a whining plasma blade through the chest of Limelight. Limelight hissed the last of the steam in his cooling system out of his vents and died, regal golden eyes flickering dark.

The Prime's gaze remained on the now dead bot as the lead of Prima's goons stepped forward and spoke, a curl of disdain at the corners of his mouth. "Liege Maximo, you are hereby remanded to Prima's custody, greatest of the Cybertronian Primal dynasty, for your crimes against the Thirteen and your intention to subvert the decisions proposed and voted on by the Primal council." Obviously a flier, the goon flared the wing kibble that framed his elbows audial antenna flicking back and then forward. "What say you to these accusations, Prime Liege Maximo of the Forgotten Plains?"

"His name was Limelight. He was an actor you know."

At the goon's confusion, Maximo motioned to the body, distress radiating along the joins of his plating. "Limelight, the bot you just so callously slaughtered. He was an actor who had only recently worked up the courage to take the stage recently. He was in a production of _Of Loose Bolts In Love._ Dreadful screenplay itself, but his acting was incredible. First production of the damn thing to get a full five stars on the local feeds." His orange eyes darkened, the expression following suite a split second afterwards. "And you found it necessary to drive a sword through his spark. He was a clean five hundred years old."

Prima's deputy snorted, leveling the blaster at Maximo. "Do you think his death matters? When you've helped orchestrate the death of a Holy Prime?"

He wasn't able to speak for much longer, as his facial plate was missing, energon pouring from the torn cables that once held it in place. Maximo discarded the twisted metal wreck of a face as the deputy collapsed to the floor and stepped over the twitching body, baring a set of double canine teeth at the stunned ranks of Prima's enforcers. They stared at him in startled silence for a moment, then the second took over and commanded her waves forward, and they were lost in the obscuring clouds of steam as his cooling system kicked into labor mode.

They did overwhelm him out of sheer numbers, but he gave them a decent run for their money. As the remaining enemies crowded in on him, the largest of which held him down and another his arms, the sour flavor of half processed energon fresh from the lines brought his simmering temper down enough to remind him that he had indeed torn out one of his attacker's throat cabling with his blunted triangular teeth, the likes of which could crush either energon in its rough crystalline form or the delicate silica-alloy of a bot's flexible fuel lines. Most of the energon puddling around him and out of his mouth wasn't his, but he could feel the dull ring of a helm injury vibrating against his processor, and he groaned as he was slung to his feet and marched out through the door, away from the too fast thrum of Vigilem's spark.

Through his injured haze, Maximo could tell it was too quiet, and even quieter when they emerged from the passage through Vigilem's body and onto the cracked ground of the Forgotten Plains. His titan was on his knees, clawed fingers dug into the ground, and his great magenta optics flickered with the telltale signs of a paralysis virus. Close by - miles off but close by titan standards - Chela and Metrotitan watched their brother's silent battle with stoic expressions. Metroplex sat cross legged with his back to the whole affair, but Maximo could just barely hear the soft keen of a titan mourning song. The oldest of the titans wailed for what they had done to their youngest brother by their standards. Mourning was an affair usually kept private with other titans.

Nearby, the citizens of the once proud titan city sat on their feet, knees digging into the stone ground in a cruel echo of their city. As Maximo watched, more were pulled from the depths of Vigilem, lined up in silent lines. These were those who had stayed to defend their home, and there were far too many. 

No ceremony was held on the way from the fallen city to his prison. The singular cell stood alone at Metrotitan's foot, and he said nothing as the head of the line of Prima's men pulled Liege Maximo from the prison caravan trailer. The vision had glitched out of one of his optics, but he still managed a vicious snarl at the gathered crowd as the guard jerked his bound arms and dragged him towards the cell. It was a monolith, a strange singular cylinder without enough space to even lay down. Unconnected cables lined the bottom of the thing like grasping arms, and the sliding door had a single tiny barred window. 

Maximo struggled to protest, but something was disconnecting in his processor whenever he opened his mouth, and the crust of dried energon on his lips kept distracting his already crooked thought trees. His nose almost cracked when his face hit the back of the cell, and he scrabbled at the singular bench that was formed out of the hard dull metal of the cell wall.

The door shut behind him, and the dark closed in.


End file.
